The impact of HIV/AIDS across southern Africa is felt in all countries, communities and peoples of the region. Whilst the population of the SADC countries makes up only 3.5% of the world population, 37% of people living globally with HIV and AIDS live here.

The divergence in economic and political development and in AIDS prevalence and vulnerability across this region indicates that each country experiences the devastation in unique ways, but all are united in suffering the impacts and the losses wrought by the pandemic. Sectors such as agriculture, business and education face crises of growing skills shortages, and many health systems have come close to imploding under the strain.

Basic human indicators are falling. In the worst cases, GDP and national economic status are threatened, and in the worst-affected countries, HIV threatens the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Household poverty is increasing, with many families and communities suffering dissolution, and generations of orphans are entering society. Childhood HIV infection is now the underlying factor in the majority of childhood mortalities. The impact of HIV/AIDS on the elderly is becoming more severe through the burden of care and their own vulnerability to infection, and women of all ages continue to endure the greatest risks through socio-economic, physiological and cultural disadvantage.

Unequal gender relations, ongoing controversies regarding treatment, and the exceptional status of the disease all generate various forms of shaming and violation which drive the spread of HIV. Low uptake of Voluntary Counselling and Testing is a by-product of this stigma and discrimination, which obviates access to health rights.

And yet, through all this suffering comes a sense of purpose and response that is bringing the peoples of the region together. Governments, civil society organisations, international and sub-continental bodies such as UNAIDS, WHO, and SADC, academia and many development agencies are co-operating as never before in their shared commitment to conquer HIV and AIDS. The SADC strategy and business plan reflects this common fight by focusing five critical concerns into areas for intervention. These are:

Policy development and harmonisation

Capacity-building and mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into all SADC policies and plans

Facilitation of a technical response, resource networks, collaboration and co-ordination

Resource mobilisation for the regional multi-sectoral response

Monitoring and evaluation of the regional multi-sectoral response

As global development partners supporting HEARD's work in these areas, we are united in acting within the framework of operating agreements for the region. It is for this reason that, in line with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (March 2005) that cemented donor partner harmonisation, we entered into a Joint Financing Arrangement (JFA) with HEARD. The organisation has built an admirable record of contribution to knowledge and mobilisation in relation to the pandemic through its research, training and systems support work in Southern Africa. We perceived a synergy of aims, values and focus areas that made our partnership with HEARD a logical one, forged as it is in mutual respect and in cognisance of many reciprocal advantages that it can deliver to a range of stakeholders and beneficiaries.

Over the last two years, we have been pleased to contribute in many ways to HEARD's current strategy. We believe that the structuring of research activities into two core programmes: "Systemic interpretations of the pandemic and creating sustainable response systems" and "The effects of the pandemic on vulnerability in Africa, specifically for children, women and families" increases depth of scholarship and builds bodies of world-class knowledge that will enrich practice.

The shift in focus from training activities to partnering with training organisations, thereby building capacity in the region and supervising post-graduate students, is important, as it contributes to our shared vision of organisational capacity-building. Finally, the emphasis on analysing, and then supporting, systems and leadership in Africa to respond to the pandemic aligns neatly with many of our other regional development aid activities. The enhancement of capacity within SADC and other regional bodies is crucial to the efficacy and sustainability of regional responses.

We were particularly pleased with the innovative research on the impact of AIDS in Swaziland, which is categorised as a "lower-middle income" country. The study showed a steady deterioration in many indicators, but most importantly brought these indicators together in one report. This has enabled input towards policy development and revision in that country.

HEARD's other work has revealed information that will generate urgent and deeper research, more nuanced data analysis and, we hope, policy debates and reform. For example, staff working conditions at selected public health anti-retroviral therapy clinics in South Africa were found to be better than those of their non-ART clinic colleagues, although this might not be sustainable if demand for ART services exceeds capacity in these clinics. Also, studies of child wellbeing in Amajuba District, the area of highest HIV prevalence in South Africa (46%) indicate that orphans - some as young as 10 years old - are twice as likely to have been sexually active than non-orphans.

Looking back broadly on the year 2007, it has been one of consolidation, both for HEARD and for us, as its JFA partners. HEARD's progress in every sphere of application has continued, with highlights described in this Annual Report. Plans are in place for increasing the pace and scope of activity in 2008, which will include HEARD conducting research and capacity-building with their partners in Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania, and using this to inform policy debates.

This constitutes a particular feature of HEARD's contribution to African analysis and intellectual leadership. It is an established and unfolding investment in working with regional, international and global agencies - including ourselves - to investigate and define the driving factors and impacts of HIV/AIDS, the multiple meanings and contexts of vulnerability - and by convening key players to advance this knowledge into broad realms, their findings can be translated into significant policy development and implementation. On the global scale, HEARD's commitment to such association has been acknowledged during 2007 through its renewed status as a UNAIDS Collaborating Centre, and in its recent appointment as the international Secretariat of the UNAIDS/World Bank Economic Research Group.

As for the JFA itself, its emergence has been groundbreaking. The very act of a collaborative, five-year funding arrangement speaks volumes about our confidence in HEARD, its work and its vision. It also testifies to our own commitment in funding the harnessing of research and advocacy in the fight against HIV and AIDS. The HEARD JFA is proving to be both a prototype and an exemplar for future involvement of this nature in the development arena.

In 2007, its 10th anniversary year, HEARD has begun to deploy its augmented human, intellectual, financial and collaborative capital - and the latitude to assign these resources - towards a research, advocacy and management agenda that will continue to pursue excellence and relevance.

HEARD's priorities in 2008 will be:

• Pulling together findings from research so far, and answering the two Programmes' core questions;

Implementing our mutually supportive capacity-building work with partners in the region

Strengthening links with regional government and NGO agencies.

We look forward to our ongoing relationship with HEARD in supporting such innovation and elevated standards of quality.

Eva-Charlotte Roos - Regional HIV/AIDS Advisor
The Swedish/Norwegian Regional HIV/AIDS Team [insert logo]

Isabelle van Tol - First Secretary, HIV/AIDS and SRHR programme for Southern Africa

Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands [insert logo]

Robin Gorna - Senior Health and AIDS Adviser

DFID Southern Africa [insert logo]

Mark Stirling - Director

UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Eastern and Southern Africa [insert logo]

Cait Moran - Head of Development

Irish Aid South Africa [insert logo]